The Girl With the Botticelli Eyes (17 page)

When he first saw her he was a young instructor at the Art Institute; she was five years his junior, a painting student from downtown auditing his course but only sporadically attending it.

She had what was called in those days “attitude,” which was generally held to be a sense of superiority predicated on no visible body of accomplishment. At an earlier time, they’d have called it “brass.”

At the close of the semester, he gave her a C and told her she was wasting time. She apologized for making a nuisance of herself and for having played “the smart-ass brat” (her words), which she freely admitted she’d been playing most of her life and getting away with it.

They started seeing a great deal of each other (not regularly—they both continued to see other people at the same time—but a great deal, nonetheless).

As courtships go, theirs was brief. She’d married him over the strong objections of her parents, who were mercantile and would have preferred someone like-minded. Maeve was, after all, an only child, and since she showed little inclination to take over someday the substantial commercial real estate enterprise the Connells had amassed over the years, the hope was that she’d be clever enough, or at least cooperative enough, to choose a mate who would.

Needless to say, she didn’t, marrying instead the young curator of Renaissance painting. Overeducated, attractive enough, he had some promise—however; unfortunately, the kind that brings great distinction but little in the way of material reward, which was the only kind the Connells understood.

Just months after their marriage, her phenomenal rise began. She started showing in galleries in TriBeCa and SoHo. Almost instantly, she was written about in the right periodicals and journals, and in the sort of glowing terms that older, far more experienced painters would sacrifice a limb to see written about themselves.

In the course of two years, her prices rose exponentially. Shortly, she was installed at the best galleries on Fifty-seventh Street. She was an item in trendy periodicals like
New York
magazine, as well as such tony ones as
ARTnews,
where heavy reputations are established. She was by no means yet “major” but highly regarded sources claimed she was well on her way to becoming just that.

At that time, Manship was putting in ten hours a day as a curator at the Metropolitan. At night, he was writing a monograph on Giotto, destined to become a classic in its own right. He was also teaching in whatever spare time he had. He, too, was spoken of as “immensely promising,” but only within narrow curatorial circles and with none of the glittery media fanfare that trumpeted his wife’s accomplishments. He was eclipsed, to say the least.

Far more troubling than the fact of being eclipsed by his wife was the feeling of being consumed by her, which eventually spelled doom to their marriage. Manship was not a particularly envious man. He didn’t begrudge her an inch of the limelight in which she was then basking. He was making his way, too, but in a world far less generous with praise and far more adept at betrayal, and he needed every spare minute of his own time just to keep his back covered.

“You haven’t said a word about Tom.” Manship rose and carried off her empty plates.

“What about him?”

“Is he all right?”

“Well, you know Tom. Just as long as business is fine, he is.”

“
And is it
?”

She accepted the bowl of raspberries he offered. “Since I haven’t heard anything to the contrary, I presume that it is.”

“And everything is”—he reached for the apposite phrase—“good between you?”

She gaped at him, her mouth full of berries. “Oh, Mark … if that isn’t you to a tee. You’re not really concerned?”

“Why shouldn’t I be? Just because we’re no longer married doesn’t mean I no longer care about you. I just hope everything is … fine.”

At first, she thought he was being sarcastic then realized he was absolutely serious. “That’s sweet of you, Mark. Well, you know, it’s not exactly Romeo and Juliet between Tom and me, if that’s what you mean.”

“What is?”

“But, then again, we’re fond of each other, respect each other’s work, each other’s needs. What can I say? It’s a life. I’m not exactly crazy about Tom’s kids. I’m not overjoyed when they breeze in on us unannounced, fresh from their wanderings, and stay and stay, until Tom gives them each a big check and with the next breeze sends them all packing.”

“And you,” Manship probed. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you planning to have kids anytime soon?”

“Me?” She threw her head back and hooted at the ceiling. “Oh, Mark.”

“What’s so funny? You’re still young enough. I should think you’d want that.”

“Motherhood?” Surprised by his sudden earnestness, she became that way, too. “I honestly don’t think I’m right for it. It would be unfair.”

“To the child?”

“Of course to the child. And then, what about me?”

“What about you?”

“Well, you know my life, how I am. After my work’s done for the day, there’s not much left over for anyone else.”

She could be, and generally was, brutally frank in her assessment of others. He’d never heard her be so frank about herself. It took him aback, so that he had to cast about for some fresh conversational ploy. “And other than that?”

“Content. I’m content. My work goes well. My health is good.” She’d recovered her poise and once again she was smiling that amused, frankly mocking smile. “There now, are you satisfied?”

In answer, he rose and cleared the dishes. She took up whatever silver and soiled napery remained, then followed him to the sink. “This thing may take a week or two. There’s the funeral and all the arrangements. The lawyers have to do their thing. My first job in the morning is to get myself a hotel room.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll stay here.”

“I couldn’t possibly. It’s a terrible inconvenience. What with your show coming up and all …”

“Forget the show. It’s no inconvenience. You’ll stay. The matter is settled. I’ll tell Mrs. McCooch to make up the guest room and stock the cupboard for two.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“That’s kind of you, Mark.” She touched his arm lightly. “I’d feel much better about it if you weren’t so angry.”

“Angry? I’m not angry,” he shot back, then laughed at the contradiction between his words and the tone of his voice. “At least, I’m not angry at you.”

“Well, then, what
is
bothering you?”

“Nothing.” He brooded a moment, then shook his head wearily. “Nothing important.”

“G
OODBYE, ALDO. YOU WERE
really never much of a soldier.”

They watched the bony, naked shape slip soundlessly beneath the surface of the pool, then disappear in a gentle swirl. Borghini winked at his young apprentice.

“No one saw you, Beppe?”

“No one, maestro.”

“You’re certain?”

“The street was deserted. We just drew up and asked him the way to Frascati. When he came up to the car—
woosh.
” The boy made a whistling sound. “We had him inside in a minute.”

“Did he make much of a fuss?”

“He was too frightened, maestro.”

“He wept, you say?”

“When he caught on who we were and all, he offered us money to let him go. When that didn’t work, he pleaded.”

Borghini chuckled at the thought of his old associate pleading. He reached behind him for one of the long bamboo poles leaning up against a nearby wall. He thrust it into the pool, and its tip quickly encountered something solid not far beneath the surface. With a deep dipping motion, the colonel pushed down hard against it, making a grunting sound as he did so. Almost at once, the murky surface surrounding the pole appeared to drop, then swirl in a counterclockwise circle as Borghini sent the pole plunging deeper.

The boy watched the roiled surface spread out and slap noisily at the edges of the pool. He stepped back to avoid the highly caustic fluid from splashing his shoes. He watched, not moving, never once lifting his gaze until the swirling vortex near the center of the pool grew still once more. By then, the colonel had returned his pole to its place among several others resting against the wall.

“In a few days,” Borghini said, wringing his hands dry on a dirty towel, “our beloved, late-lamented Pettigrilli will be ready for the flensing beam. And then, my dear Beppe.”

“Yes, maestro?”

“Can you guess what is next?”

“Yes, maestro.” The boy spoke with the quiet, unquestioning obedience of an acolyte in a sacred order. “You will then have to fetch the young lady in the photographs.”

Ludovico Borghini touched a candle to the small cigarillo clenched between his teeth and splashed another finger of grappa into his glass. It was nearly midnight. He sat at the dinner table, exhausted after a day of strenuous activity.

He’d scarcely eaten since morning. Having returned muddy and exhausted less than an hour ago, he found Beppe had left him a bland, rubbery piece of chicken and overboiled vegetables. There was even a slice of commercial cake for dessert. He gazed at it in disgust, then pushed his plate away and resigned himself to the simple pleasure of bread and grappa.

His thirst for that fiery white liquid had sharpened considerably over the past months. Its benefits to him were not inconsiderable. It had the power to quell in him the gnawing, fretful ache of life he carried about with him each day from morning until night.

A pleasant drowsy sensation had started to flow upward from his feet, radiating outward into his limbs and chest and settling finally behind his eyes. The effect was to muffle all of the jarring, dissonant noises from the street outside. He knew from the numb little circle erupting at the center of his forehead that it would soon be time for him to go upstairs to sleep. It was a particularly pleasing sensation to him—but not for the sensation in itself. He liked to recall that as a young man Fra Girolamo, the mad monk Savonarola, while casting about for some direction in life, had dreamed that while he slept a stream of icy water had poured relentlessly down on his forehead. When he woke, Savonarola felt purified, cleansed, and renewed. From that point on, he knew precisely what his life’s work was to be.

Though his eyes had begun to droop, Borghini pulled out from inside his rumpled tunic a set of photographs and, like a hand of whist, fanned them out on the table before him.

The familiar features of a young woman on the Ponte Vecchio swam before his woozy eyes. He had to struggle to focus his gaze. One had her browsing at the outdoor stand of an inexpensive jeweler. Another had her stepping from a bus near the Baptistry. Each shot, candid, unposed, registered some specific reaction in her strikingly expressive face—everything from indifference to a kind of veiled sorrow. In several photos, she chatted with a vendor …

“You can have her, Ludo.”

“I prefer the other, Papa.”

“But that one has no breasts. Why don’t you take the one with the good breasts. Or possibly even the
negra.
Signora, bring the
tutzone
here for a moment. Look at those thighs, Ludo. But be careful. She could crush you between them.”

Borghini’s eyes scanned every line of that well-remembered face. He knew each crease, each shadow. Over the years, the face had changed. No doubt of that. When still a girl just out of university, there’d been a kind of radical spark in her look. There was a defiance to it, a certain inclination to challenge authority and break laws.

Here now, in a dozen or so candid photos, he saw an older, more self-assured woman. Still young, to be sure, not yet thirty, that fever that once burned in her appeared to have been cooled by time and circumstances. The need to make her own way, to get on with life, had tempered the rebelliousness and opened her to accommodation.

No doubt she would marry soon—some professional man, a lawyer, an engineer, perhaps, or a university teacher. Some upstanding, safe, prosaic dolt who’d give her six children and a house in the suburbs. They’d go to the seashore in the summer. Shaking his head, he belched, bringing up a sour chyme of undigested grappa that burned the back of his throat.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go on. I won’t bite you. Here … give me your hand. What’s the matter with you? Don’t be silly. I’ll make it good for you. I won’t hurt you. Here, now give me your hand. Now squeeze and rub. Back and forth. Very gentle. That’s it. Be nice. A girl likes it when you’re nice. Good. Very good. See? It’s not so terrible. I can’t believe this is really your first time. And even your papa has to bring you. How old did you say—”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen? Oh my. That feels nice. Keep going. Hold me close. Don’t you like it? What’s the matter? Don’t you like a black girl? I can show you things no white girl can. Here, let me—Oh, what’s wrong? We haven’t even begun and already … Oh, forgive me. I don’t mean to laugh. I’m stupid. Wait—let me wash you off. You don’t want the old man to see.”

From somewhere upstairs in the far reaches of the empty palazzo, Borghini heard the old grandfather clock strike the hour. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled, dirt-stained piece of paper on which had been written a note in a large, childish scrawl. During the past several weeks, he’d read it over and over again, each time with a sense of slowly mounting anger.

Maestro,

No mistake. It was Pettigrilli at the signorina’s place. I followed him there to Fiesole. They sat outside in the garden. They drank tea and I watched from behind a bush. He stayed about an hour.

Beppe

Borghini crumpled the note in his fist and flung it across the table. “So,” he muttered. “There is no longer any doubt. It had to be Isobel who sent the museum fellow around to the gallery. What was he looking for? Isobel knows nothing about the gallery; she’s never been there. But Pettigrilli, that pukey little
strunz,
had. Often enough. And he told her, ay? Well, now we’ve taken care of Pettigrilli and his long tongue. And as for you, my darling Isobel,” he cooed drunkenly at the snapshots fanned out across the tabletop, “it seems our paths are soon to cross again.”